Best Buy’s Showrooming Strategy Resonating with Mobile Shoppers

Best Buy’s initiatives to combat showrooming among its customers have been well-documented, and it appears that the big box’s efforts to thwart Amazon.com may be paying off among mobile users. According to Prosper Insights & Analytics’ new Showrooming Ratio, Best Buy may be doing a more effective job keeping wandering shopping carts away from Amazon, particularly compared to its discount peers.

The Showrooming Ratio indicates the likelihood that a mobile user will evaluate a product in a brick-and-mortar store and ultimately may purchase the product via that store’s site or a competitor’s digital channel. When compared to Amazon, Best Buy scored a Showrooming Ratio of 111.93 among mobile users in the market for electronics, meaning that these shoppers are roughly 11% more likely to purchase via Amazon than a Best Buy digital channel. Although the ratio tilts in Amazon’s favor, when compared to Walmart and Target, it’s an improved margin.

Showrooming Ratios for Electronics Purchases – Mobile Users 18+
(Retailer site vs. Amazon.com)
Best Buy— 111.93
Target—125.96
Walmart—135.04

Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics™
To be read as: Mobile Users who shopped for Electronics within a Best Buy retail store are 11% more likely to purchase a product on Amazon vs. BestBuy.com after this instore evaluation.

Prosper Insights & Analytics also looked at Showrooming Ratios by gender. It seems that men are more loyal to Best Buy channels than Target and Walmart, whereas women tend to have an allegiance to Target.

Showrooming Ratios for Electronics Purchases – Male Mobile Users 18+
(Retailer site vs. Amazon.com)
Best Buy— 106.59
Target— 145.46
Walmart— 152.88

Showrooming Ratios for Electronics Purchases – Female Mobile Users 18+
(Retailer site vs. Amazon.com)
Best Buy— 118.98
Target— 109.40
Walmart— 121.46

Source: Prosper Insights & Analytics™

“Men are more prone to looking for a variety of brands, in-store experience, and the latest technology when shopping for electronics, whereas women are generally more focused on a budget-friendly price point,” said Pam Goodfellow, analyst for Prosper Insights & Analytics. “With Best Buy going to great efforts to improve its offerings and in-store customer experience, it’s not surprising that male mobile shoppers are showing a higher affinity to this store compared to discounters. The challenge for Best Buy going forward will be to maintain a great experience and retain loyal shoppers because Amazon will continue to up the ante when it comes to winning over its competitors’ customers.”

For the complimentary report and access to the Prosper Mobile InsightCenter™, visit http://www.ProsperMobile.com. Once you’ve logged in, the report is posted under the “Insights” tab.

These insights derive from the May Mobile Survey, conducted by Prosper Mobile Insights™. The survey included 330 smartphone and tablet users from the uSamp Mobile Panel who completed the survey on their devices. Margin of error is +/- 5.5% at a 95% confidence level.

Prosper Insights & Analytics™
Prosper Insights & Analytics provides advanced business intelligence using sophisticated analytical software to examine big datasets and provide answers to executives via its cloud-based InsightCenter™ platform powered by Prosper Technologies™. By integrating a variety of data including economic, behavioral and attitudinal data, Prosper Insights & Analytics delivers insights for executive decision making. Further, it is continually identifying unique insights through analytics to enable marketers to make knowledge-based decisions rather than relying on intuition. To learn more: http://www.ProsperDiscovery.com

uSamp
uSamp (http://www.uSamp.com), the fastest growing company in the Market Research Industry, is a premier provider of technology and survey respondents used to obtain consumer and business insights. uSamp’s leading-mobile technology and SaaS platform transform the way companies gain intelligence to make better, faster decisions about their products and services by tapping into uSamp’s 12 million member global panel of survey respondents. Through uSamp’s proprietary technologies for self-serve sampling and survey authoring, companies have on-demand access to millions of profiled survey respondents. uSamp is based in Los Angeles, with five offices throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. The company has more than 200 team members worldwide. uSamp was No. 213 on the 2012 Inc. 500|5000 exclusive ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies and is recognized on the 2011 and 2012 Forbes’ America’s Most Promising Company list.

Contact:
Prosper Insights & Analytics™
Chrissy Wissinger
chrissy(at)goProsper(dot)com

Pam Goodfellow
pam(at)goProsper(dot)com

614-846-0146